This article was first published in The Daily Telegraph and is reproduced with their permission.
Lulu: “I’m still waiting to be discovered”
“I sometimes think I’ve been like a kewpie doll, a little piece of fluff that pops and bounces around,” says Lulu about her five decade long music career. “In actual fact I have always been really serious about music.”
The 65-year-old Scottish singer has recently performed some low key club dates, in New York and London, playing retro blues and soul and earning glowing reviews. “At this point in my life I’m not so crazy about going to stadiums and arenas to see acts myself,” she admits. “I’m getting back to my roots.”
In a funny and revealing interview on Needle Time on Vintage TV, Lulu reveals her continuing passion and enthusiasm for music, spontaneously bursting into song to illustrate points. “I felt like in my career I’ve taken so many bends and turns and followed the lead of people that I thought knew better. Which is not a moan, it’s just an observation. I actually cried a lot, when I was asked to sing things like Boom Bang-a-Bang and I’m A Tiger. I really wanted to sing things like Morning Dew, stuff that to me was darker and deeper.”
She cheerfully acknowledges that her all-round pliability, which has included such diversions as singing for the Eurovision, hosting Saturday night variety TV shows and duetting with Take That, has contributed to her longevity as a star. “I’m very grateful” she insists but says that, behind the scenes, she has always been very opinionated about music, to the point of being “obnoxious” and “bad tempered.”
“When I was young I was like ‘that’s rubbish, I don’t like this, I like that!’ I was taken off my track, there’s part of me that misses that part of me.”
She asserts that she can be quite difficult for musicians to work with. “I’m a fascist. I’m an absolute fascist. But it’s in order to get that passion, that feeling. It’s not just ‘let’s go through it and it’s fine.’ It’s never fine! It can always be better.”
Her recent shows, in which she has been performing the kind of songs that she has always loved rather than her own hits, are part of a process of working towards a new album. She jokes that her best work might yet to be come, perhaps when she’s “94 years old.”
“I’m still waiting to be discovered!” she humorously asserts. “Because it’s not right yet, it’s not the best. But I keep doing it ‘cause its so great. I’m getting there. That’s the thrill of it.”
Watch the preview here:
